The Prime Minister has told the House of Commons that enough is enough” as he unveiled his raft of new measures, adding “unless we act now and decisively, this will only get worse”.
He has announced a new deal with Albania to speed up the return of Albanian asylum seekers, who make up a third of those arriving to the UK by small boats and introducing a new, dedicated and unified Small Boats Command Centre to step up how we police the channel.
Sunak told MP’s that a third of all those arriving in small boats this year – almost 13,000 – are Albanian.
“And yet Albania is a safe, prosperous European country.It is deemed safe for returns by Germany, France, Italy, Sweden.
It is an EU accession country, a Nato ally and a member of the same treaty against trafficking as the United Kingdom.
The prime minister of Albania has himself said there is no reason why we cannot return Albanian asylum seekers immediately.”
He also announced a doubling of funding for the National Crime Agency to tackle immigration crime in Europe and 200 new staff to step up immigration enforcement.
These extra resources he said will in turn will “allow us to increase raids on illegal working by 50%.”
He announced a doubling the number of caseworkers and radically streamlining the asylum process and promised to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year.
As previously speculated the Government moving up to 10,000 people out of expensive hotel accommodation into low-cost sites like disused holiday parks and former student halls.
